


Tempest

by sasha_b



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Din also likes Omera, Din loves that kid, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I made baby yoda cry and I feel terrible about it, Missing Scene, day in the life, possible trigger for rain and storms, there's a storm in this story that I tried to make scary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: A storm and Din's thoughts conspire to keep him from surety.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV) & Omera (Star Wars)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 93





	Tempest

**Author's Note:**

> This is set about ten days into Din, Cara and the kid's stay on Sorgan.

The Mandalorian sits at the edge of the barn, and crosses his legs as he watches the kid play with Omera’s daughter, Winta.

The sky is a brilliant purple, and he wonders – lazily, which makes him worry about himself for a short, irrational moment – if they could stay here.

The wonder has come on him suddenly, and he sits up without realizing it, his shoulders tensing as he narrows his gaze, watching the children playing leapfrog as he remembers having done himself. In another life, with other children that were most certainly dead a long time now.

He doesn’t want the kid, the little kid that looks at him with a toothy grin on his green face, to have to have that kind of memory. He might already, but Din refuses to be a party to any new ones.

The little one makes a babbling baby noise at him and waves an awkward hand in the air – a few of the krill that are drying on a line next to the barn waver in what he thinks is a draft of evening air, but he takes note of the trees and the fact that they’re not moving. The kid waves his chubby clawed fingers again, and the krill lift up, pulling away from the line.

Din gets to his feet, and scoops him up in a loose hold, the kid squawking with indignation, but Din puts a hand over the ones that the kid is waving around, and shushes him, the Beskar over his chest and shoulders winking in the dimming evening light. The sky is purpling further, and the air _is_ really quite still.

“Aw,” he hears Winta make the universal noise for disappointed child, but he just shakes his head at her. “Time for dinner,” he says, his voice metallically reverberating in the tranquility of the coming night. “Come on, you,” he tells the kid in his arms. “Let’s eat.”

Cara is suddenly at his shoulder; he chides himself internally that he hasn’t heard her coming. He’s getting soft. He looks at the kid; the burbling noises are – the word ‘cute’ isn’t one he’s super used to using, but it fits – and he sighs, a noise he’s getting really too good at.

“Dinner?” Cara holds out a plate; she’s got her own in her other hand, and a mug of the local brew under her arm. “I’m famished. I can imagine you are too,” she adds, tossed over her shoulder as she turns toward the barn. “I’ll put yours here.”

She sets it on the round table outside the door, and disappears inside, her sweat and leather smell lingering in the air. He knows she’s been as busy as he has; they’ve taken turns patrolling the forest around the village since they’d decimated the local raiders and the AT-ST. But neither of them is quite ready to relax totally.

Din wonders where Omera is, and why she hasn’t been the one to bring the dinner, but he brushes that thought off as unkind. She has other things to do besides take care of perfectly grown people, least of all perfectly grown mostly strangers.

That thought makes him sad in a way he doesn’t like, however, and to stave it off, he follows Cara into the barn, picking up the plate of food, even as the sun finally sets into the weirdly purple sky. Winta hangs around for a few minutes; he knows she’s hoping for more play, but after no more word from him, she groans dramatically and departs, yelling out _see you tomorrow_!

The kid bounces and makes a grabbing gesture toward the door as they pass through, but Din shakes his head. “Uh uh. Let’s eat, buddy.”

Cara’s wolfing down her meal, and she kicks her now bare feet up onto a bench as she talks through a full mouth. “Nothing. I don’t know how much longer we need to keep doing this. I have a feeling they’re scared off for good. Or for at least a season.”

Din sits and pulls the plate toward himself and the kid, and begins to break off bites of meat for the baby. He feeds him as he thinks. “Maybe.”

“Without their Walker, what are they gonna do? They’re matched hand to hand with us,” she jerks her chin at him, “and these farmers have proved to be pretty handy with sharp sticks. And not a few of them with blasters.” She eats quickly as Din continues to hand food to the kid, whose contented coos ease his brain a bit.

He shrugs. “Better safe than sorry. I’m thinking a few more days.”

“Okay,” she answers, drawing out the word. She finishes her meal and begins removing the hard shell of her armor. “I get you. But let’s not let paranoia color our judgment.” Standing, she stretches and takes a swig of her drink. “I’ll leave you to eat,” she says. “I’m hitting the ‘fresher. And the shower.”

He nods and she exits, winking at the kid and patting the top of his head as she passes. She’s gone a moment; he waits.

“Hey,” her voice trails in from outside the door. “Come out here.”

He leaves the piece of roasted krill he’s been feeding the kid with him, and joins Cara on the steps of the barn. The moons are rising, and the sky is thick with clouds and winking stars; he knows they will be much more bright closer to midnight, but this is secretly one of his favorite times of day, and he takes a second to just look.

Then he cocks his head and follows her pointing finger as she speaks.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know.”

The sky to the west, where the setting sun has left a fraction of purple light, is crowded with black, heavy clouds, and he can feel the difference in the air – it hasn’t changed from earlier evening, but the humidity levels seem different, and it just feels –

“It’s thick,” Cara says. “I feel as though I could swim through this. That changed fast.”

He nods and shrugs. “Omera didn’t say anything about rain. But best to hurry, all the same.” He turns and reenters the barn, even as Cara begins the quick walk to the building where the farmers have their one and only shower. The air is dense and he wipes a hand over his gauntlet, moisture coming off the Beskar onto the leather coating on his fingers.

“Hmmm,” he murmurs, and the kid answers with an _ah_! that forces Din to switch his attention to, as he’s hungry himself. He’d better eat now, before the kid finishes it all off.

*

Sleep doesn’t come easy to him.

The kid is curled into a ball under Din’s cloak and the stack of blankets in his borrowed crib, and Din lies awake, listening to Cara snore in another corner of the barn. The darkness is almost complete, save for the light from the moons that glow whitely in the window near his cot, and he sits up, muscles stiff and exhausted, head aching. The helmet and his armor sit in a neat pile under the bed, the metal occasionally picking up the shine from the stars. He gets out of the cot, and heads to the window, where he sets his elbows against the sill, and leans out enough to see if he can see the west horizon, and if the sky is still blacker than just from lack of sun.

He can’t see much without his helmet or scope from his pulse rifle, and honestly, he’s too tired to get either. Which is disconcerting and he bites the inside of his cheek, ashamed of his lack of concern.

He’s tired. He’s been tired almost his entire life, and he doesn’t foresee that changing any time soon. He’s good at what he does, and he’s still thankful for the gift of being taken in by his Tribe, and he hopes down deep they’re fine after the shootout on Nevarro. He still can’t believe what was sacrificed for him and for the kid, but as the armorer has always said (and the rest of them, too) without foundlings, there is no future for Mandalore or their culture.

“This is the way,” he murmurs; it’s calming to him, a statement of fact, a meditation, a creed that has changed Din’s life forever.

“Muh?”

 _Shit_.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispers to the kid. “It’s okay.” He turns his head back to the window; he knows the kid can’t see him in the gloom.

He stands for a few moments more at the window, staring out at the impenetrable night, and the air is wet and heavier than before, and he can almost taste the rain. Whether or not Omera said it was coming, it is. He’ll check the instruments on his gauntlets in the morning, and if it is raining, that might give him a chance to thoroughly clean all of the weapons he’s brought with him, and a chance to sit down for a bit.

Maybe the forest can watch itself for a few hours, at least.

“Eh?”

“Kid,” he sighs, slipping his helmet on and going to the crib, where the little one is wobbling to a half standing position. “Let’s pretend you do what I say sometimes, okay?”

The kid stares up at him, rubbing at one of his impossibly huge eyes, and then his arms go out, and Din just sighs again. Picking him up out of the crib, he returns to the cot, and lays down, joints creaking and head still aching inside the helmet, this time sleep taking him quickly as the kid nestles into the edge of his armpit, even as the threatened thunder begins to sound in the distance.

*

“What time is it?”

Din starts awake; Cara’s voice is right next to him, and he has to stop himself from whipping out a hand and punching her. He had just fallen asleep, hadn’t he? Damn it.

The kid shifts in his burrowed spot and mumbles words Din doesn’t understand. He sits and carefully lets the boy stay sleeping in the cot; the little one immediately takes the place where Din had been, the blankets still warm. Din rubs his arms and stands, sliding a flight jacket on, and after toeing on his boots, follows Cara outside. He doesn’t mind sleeping in his helmet – he’s really used to it, actually – but his neck aches and he wants nothing but to shave the prickly hair off his chin and brush his teeth before getting to anything else. He feels slimy, and the air outside the barn is –

“It’s too quiet,” Cara says.

He nods and is suddenly awake. There are no animal noises, no night movements, no trees creaking. It’s as if someone turned all the sound off.

And then just as suddenly, the sky in the western corner of the horizon seems to _detach_ from the blanket of stars it’s been blended with, and the biggest, blackest funnel Din’s ever seen – he’s never seen anything like this, really – begins to move toward them, wobbling and he sees lightning and Cara is running toward the middle of the village in her bare feet, shouting for them to _wake up!! Storm!!_

“What is that?” he shouts, but she’s too far to hear him. He can see the clouds spinning closer now, and rain begins in earnest as though someone has turned on a faucet. Din turns and he’s crossed the few feet it takes to get inside the barn in less than 2 seconds, and he scoops up the kid, who grumbles at being woken.

His eyes go wide, however, when he realizes how serious Din is, and he tucks himself into the hold Din has on him.

“Let’s go,” Din tells him, breathlessly trying to grab up his armor, succeeding in snapping his pulse rifle into place, his blaster shoved through his belt, the kid making a keening sound into Din’s armpit as he moves about the barn as fast as he can.

“ _Kriff_ ,” he shouts the curse, his voice rough as he realizes he can’t get all his armor up in time, and is just about to leave it, which makes him want to vomit, when he sees the edge of a lockbox sticking out from behind where Cara’s been sleeping. It’s heavy and old, and he thanks the stars when it opens. He shoves everything in, and slams the lid, spinning the lock and hoping someone has the combination to get in later.

He thinks _I have weapons, I can just shoot it open_ , his brain function crazy and unfocused as the sounds of the funnel and the driving rain approach quickly. It’s the loudest thing he’s ever heard, save for the noise of a ship blasting off too closely. He waits for the sonic boom, which may or may not come, as he exits the barn and Cara’s there, grabbing his arm and tugging him toward the center of town, where he can see the inhabitants gathering.

The cloud is close now, maybe a parsec, and he carries the kid, his pulse rifle, and attempts to locate and corral any loose children or villagers as he and Cara automatically split up, continuing in a ring around the village proper. He can barely see through the deluge, and the kid is still keening into his armpit, and Din tries to shush him but he’s pretty sure the kid can’t hear him over the sound of approaching death – he’s never been in a storm like this one, but he’s seen sandstorms appear out of nowhere and kill without remorse, so this can’t be much different.

“Let me take him!”

Someone’s at his elbow; it’s Winta, her face contorted with fear, but she’s reaching out for the kid. “Go help my mom!” He doesn’t hesitate; he hands the kid to her, his heart twisting unexpectedly at the shriek from the baby, his hands reaching out for Din.

“Go with her!”

He turns from the two of them after he’s sure they’re heading for the ponds at the eastern edge of town, the trail of inhabitants heading that way as fast as they can possibly move. He’s not sure why – but unless there’s some sort of underground place in this village to hide, there isn’t another way to avoid the funnel, which is a lot closer now, and screaming like a gundark being murdered.

“Omera!”

He whips around as he runs through the crowd, shoving people toward the group that’s heading toward the ponds. He can’t see her. “Omera!!”

Wait – there. He can see her hair flying with the wind, can see she’s helping an old woman who’s slow to get out of her home and away from the direct path of the storm, and Din leaps over piles of baskets and fishing equipment, almost tripping as he does, and arrives as the old woman is helped by two of the younger villagers. They hustle her away and it’s just Omera and Din left, and the rain and wind is tearing at them, buffeting them together as Din leans over to shout at her _let’s go!_

“Winta!!” she answers, screaming and grabbing at his biceps. “She’s with my boy!” he answers, “there!” He points toward the gathering of people, who have begun to separate and slip into the ditches that run along the edges of the ponds. He thinks wildly they should hide in the water, but as if she’s read his mind, Omera snatches at him and shakes her head. “Safer in the ditch! Come on!”

She drags him behind her, and he follows, his rifle bouncing on his back, his boots thudding against the sodden earth as the water from the quick flooding rain begins to rise on the paths. This is too much of a soaking too fast, and he is horrified to realize it might flood.

“We need high ground!” He drags her to a stop, almost pulling her off her feet. “The water!” He points at the ground; the flooding is beginning in earnest and Omera’s slippers are soaked, along with the bottom of her skirts.

“The funnel!” she screams back, the clouds whipping at them through the purple and reddish haze that’s come with the wind and the storm, and the water rises so quickly Omera has to grab at his arm in order to stop from being towed off her feet.

He leans without thinking and snatches her up, slinging her over his shoulder, and he turns and runs as fast as he’s ever run toward the closest ditch and the only safety that might be possible.

Her hair slaps his back and he tries to be gentle with her as he sprints the last few yards, leaping at the ditch even as the shrieking of the wind and the funnel is almost on them. The rain pours into the ditch, not draining fast enough, and the bottom of it is muddy and slick as he lands awkwardly, Omera slipping off his shoulder and into his grasp and they hit the deck at the last minute. They hold onto each other and duck as far into the ditch as they can, the roar of the funnel cloud and storm

the loudest

thing

he’s ever

heard

since the death of his parents at the hands of Imp droids and he’s deafened and blinded, his helmet protecting his head from the torrent of detritus being picked up and carried by the funnel that passes just slightly to the left of where they’re crouched.

The stars are gone and his eyes are filled with tears and he can’t see anything and all he can hear is screaming and it’s like he never left and he’s five again, and the noise and the stink of terrified people washes over him and he’s in blackness again, a boom like a bomb going off the last noise he hears before silence, infinite and deafening of its own accord.

*

The sun.

_Is that the sun?_

Gods, he’s hot.

He moves, and he groans as a weight shifts on top of him, and as it moves, it groans too, and he blinks steadily until he can see again. It _is_ the sun. The mud around him mires him to the ground, and he flails and pulls against the sucking miasma futilely until a hand grabs him and hauls him upright. He blinks again and shakes his head, hitting the side of his helmet until he can actually hear what Omera is saying to him.

She looks like a drowned rat. He realizes she’s the one who helped lift him, and he takes her by the arms and checks her face and eyes for signs of concussion – come to think of it, _he_ might have one. He laughs, and her expression shifts to one of concern. “Are you alright?”

Her voice comes in waves, but he hits the side of his helmet again with his bare hand – where is his gear? - and tries to answer her. It comes out as a croak, but he clears his throat and his “yes,” is clear this time. “Are you?”

In answer she throws her arms around him and squeezes, but right before he can ask her why and what’s going on, she turns and points to the people huddled behind them in the ditch. “We’re all accounted for,” she says, her voice teary. “We’re all okay.”

He nods and stops quickly, as that hurts. “The kid,” he says, and then says it louder. “Kid!!”

“He’s here!”

A shout comes down the line of people, and Din steps around Omera, not meaning to be rude, but the _kid_. He streaks down the muddy, disgusting ditch, and there’s Winta, and there’s the kid, who screams and holds out his arms when Din appears suddenly. He and the girl are soaked, and Din can’t stand the sound the kid is making; it’s a combo of the mudhorn blat and a broken hearted shriek that he doesn’t ever want to hear again. He rips his jacket off, and snatches the boy from Winta, who upon cursory inspection seems okay (he doesn’t see any blood). He wraps the kid in his jacket and holds him to his chest, the kid still screaming and crying as he clings to Din’s collar, his claws ripping at Din’s skin.

Din finds he doesn’t care; the minimal pain reminds him he’s alive, and the kid’s alive, and he’s not five and alone.

“ _Be’sol_ ,” he tells the little one. “You’re okay. Just a _buurenaar_. You’re okay. Shhh.” He holds the kid tightly against him, the kid’s body trembling as Din tucks him as close as he can.

He finds he slips into Mando’a when he’s stressed, and it just flows better, but he shakes his head as Omera skids to a stop in the muck next to him, her hair plastered to her head, her clothing torn at the shoulder, as she yells Winta’s name and gathers her daughter up in her arms. The little girl bursts into tears, and Din, ashamedly, feels as though he could join her.

*

“You alright?”

Cara’s face is bruised and she looks as exhausted as Din feels, but he nods briefly. “Yeah. What about you?”

“Bruised. Tired. I’ll live,” she sighs. “What about the kid?”

“He’s sleeping,” Din says; he’s propped the door to the barn open, so he can see and hear the kid better. The little thing had only slept after being pumped full of enough food to choke a horse, and then only when Din had held him as he’d fought the pull of fatigue. “He’s okay. Not hurt physically,” he frowns when he uses those particular words. “I’m sure he’s traumatized. Again.”

 _I left him with those Imps_.

“Don’t,” Cara’s voice is hard. He turns from the view of the kid sleeping to her face; it’s pulled into a deep frown and she’s wavering on her feet.

“Sit,” he commands, and pulls a chair out for her. The rest of the village has gone to sleep as well, some of them collapsing at the long table in the center of town after eating. The clean up they’d been taking care of all day wasn’t easy, and Din himself is light on his feet as well. But he’s not lying down until he’s sure they’ve done all they could.

“Did you eat something?”

She nods, and he’s pretty sure she might fall asleep where she sits as well. “You?”

“I will later,” he brushes her off. “How’s the rest?”

“They’ll make it,” she answers, yawning. “Most of the buildings are okay. Two are flooded. Two are destroyed. No one was killed.” She shrugs. “It could have been worse.”

He sits next to her on the ground, plopping down, his rescued armor coating his body with its layer of comfort and protection. The locker he’d stored it in had been thrown fifty feet, but it had been intact. The back half of the barn slats were falling down and sodden, but it would be fixable. He’ll help with that in the morning.

He leans his head back against the wood that’s still damp and swollen. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

She pulls a face and the bruising next to her eye wrinkles; she winces. “I have. Back home.”

“I’ve seen sand storms take out entire encampments,” he answers. “…nothing like this.”

Shrugging, she kicks her feet up and groans. “This is a lush place. I’m not surprised, really, but damn, what piss poor timing.” He makes a noise of agreement, his helmet crackling with the sound, and before he can say anything else, the noise of footfalls has him rising quickly – _too quickly, slow down, Djarin_ – and Omera appears at the base of the set of small stairs that lead up to the damaged barn. Din nods at her and sits back down, his adrenaline still firing.

“Cara,” she says. “Did you get dinner?” Her voice is cracking with grogginess and Din can see she’s wavering on her feet too. He rises again, slowly this time, and takes her arm gently. “Sit down,” he tells her, in a less aggressive voice than he’d told Cara. She complies and wipes a hand over her forehead, shoving the tousled dark hair back. Din watches her long fingers move, and has to shake his head to concentrate.

The night noises are back, and he knows they’ll be safe from weather now. At least tonight.

“Yes, thank you,” Cara answers, standing. “But now I need to sleep before I fall down, and that’s gonna be pretty soon if I don’t watch it.” She snorts and Din hears a bit of senselessness in it, and he looks up at her. “Go.”

“Okay, Mando,” she laughs. “Get me up at first light, hmm?” She staggers inside the barn, waving at Omera, and he can hear her hit the cot without removing her boots or anything else.

The two of them sit side by side, facing the sky, and watch the last of the sun set, streaking the clouds and horizon with pinks and blues, none of the dangerous fat purple from the night before there.

He feels Omera’s shoulders relax, and he gradually does the same – until a querulous noise startles him, and he feels a tiny hand on his forearm.

He lets the sleepy kid climb into his lap, and as the boy settles there, holding a bit of Din’s cloak in his fist, he sleeps again almost immediately. Din watches him for a bit, and when he sees the kid’s breathing is making his chest rise and fall evenly, he leans his head back again, and rolls the helmet to look at Omera.

“He’s lucky,” she says softly.

“You don’t know the whole story,” he answers immediately. Stars are beginning to show, and he looks up at them, his brain and gut a whirl of thoughts and he can’t figure out where to go from here. Was it just that morning he’d been surprised to wonder if he could stay here?

Too much has happened. He needs to make sure the kid is safe. That’s what’s important now, and that’s the thing that matters.

 _He_ doesn’t belong there, but the kid could.

He opens his mouth to try and state his feelings to Omera, to ask her, possibly –

_Could the kid stay?_

_I can’t. I don’t belong here._

Even though Omera’s hands are – he wonders what they feel like on skin. On his skin.

 _Huh_.

He feels himself flush under the Beskar, and he opens his mouth to speak again.

She’s asleep, leaning against the barn, her face relaxed for the first time since they’d fought off the raiders. The blue of her clothing is flattering to her, and he takes note she’s tried to calm her hair into some semblance of a style.

Her boots are muddy still and her skirts are torn and obviously the ones she’s spent the whole day in, but she’d tried to neaten her hair.

She’s a smart woman, and kind, and she can shoot, and she obviously cares about the kid, and maybe…maybe him. Odd.

A small smile threatens to take his whole mouth, but it stops more quickly than he’d thought it might.

The night is upon them; the whole village is silent, but not a silence of danger or fear. It feels easy and still in a way that makes him breathe deeply, the kid rising with his chest as he does. He puts a hand on the kid’s back, the warmth from the little one’s body another comfort, and he turns to look at the woman asleep next to him on the porch, and that also give him security that he’s not used to outside his covert.

He licks suddenly dry lips, and despite the terror and experience of the day, despite the bone-deep weariness that wraps itself around his body and blood –

He stays awake, staring into the stars, and just as he’s about to run calibration on his helmet, his brain buzzing and spinning with thought, he catches one that shoots across the horizon. Its streak is quick and darting and he holds the kid, and listens to Omera breathe, and he closes his eyes, the night birds calls rising in a song that’s almost painful to his ears.

~

**Author's Note:**

> I hate summaries. ;)
> 
> I love day-in-the-life shit, however, and I found this prompt on Dreamwidth, and it hit all my buttons. I live in Texas and while I haven't experienced a tornado, I have been in three bad hurricanes, so I know from rain. I hope I was able to make this sound scary. 
> 
> I love being in Din's head and just wanted to spend some more time there, so this popped up. The two words I used in Mando'a mean basically "a priority," and "storm."
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who's read/commented on/liked/bookmarked/anything all this stuff I've written. I am really loving this fandom. Y'all are the best.
> 
> This is the way!


End file.
